Premier Boxing Champions is back on FOX tonight at 8 pm ET, with a heavyweight main event between unbeaten Michael Coffie and late replacement opponent Jonathan Rice.
We won’t lie to you and say this is the most star-studded FOX show — which is a low bar for FOX shows these days — but Coffie is a fun heavyweight and sometimes a show with low expectations just turns out to be good action, and I’m not just saying that either. I don’t really get anything if you hang out and watch, you already clicked the once, that’s the most I can ask.
How to Watch Coffie vs Rice
Date: Saturday, July 31 | Start Time: 8:00 pm ET
Location: Prudential Center, Newark, NJ
Streaming: FOX | TV: FOX
Online Coverage: BadLeftHook.com
Rice is in replacing veteran Gerald Washington, who tested positive for COVID earlier this week. The 34-year-old Rice does have a chance to main event a show on network TV and cause some chaos if he can pull the upset, and it’s worth noting he was fairly competitive in a TKO-10 loss to Demsey McKean in Mar. 2020, and went 10 full rounds with Efe Ajagba about 10 months ago in his last outing.
We were also supposed to see a rematch between James Martin and the prospect he upset in April, Vito Mielnicki Jr, but Martin was nowhere close to being able to make weight for the fight, so Noah Kidd will face Mielnicki instead. Martin is actually still fighting on the card, instead facing Joey Spencer in the opener, after Spencer was overweight for his scheduled fight with Dan Karpency, who then refused to face Spencer. So Spencer AND Martin — two guys who didn’t make weight — stay on TV, while Dan Karpency, who made weight, now doesn’t have a fight, and neither does Noah Kidd’s original opponent, Keeshawn Williams, who was first going to fight James Martin, but now isn’t, because Spencer has to instead. Boxing fucking rules.
There will also be fights on FS1 around 10 pm ET, immediately following the FOX card, one featuring the return of Andre Dirrell, a cause for mass celebration.
Main Card (FOX, 8:00 pm ET)
- Michael Coffie (12-0, 9 KO) vs Jonathan Rice (13-6-1, 9 KO), heavyweights, 10 rounds
- Vito Mielnicki Jr (8-1, 5 KO) vs Noah Kidd (6-3-2, 5 KO), welterweights, 8 rounds
- Joey Spencer (12-0, 9 KO) vs James Martin (7-2, 0 KO), middleweights, 8 rounds
Postliminary Overcard (FS1, 10:00 pm ET)
- Andre Dirrell (27-3, 17 KO) vs Christopher Brooker (16-7, 6 KO), light heavyweights, 10 rounds
- Norman Neely (8-0, 7 KO) vs Juan Torres (6-3-1, 3 KO), heavyweights, 6 rounds
- Karl Dargan (19-1, 9 KO) vs Ivan Delgado (13-3-2, junior welterweights, 8 rounds